GOP split on Romney remarks

Republicans and conservative opinion-makers were deeply divided on Tuesday in their response to a controversial video of Mitt Romney saying he will never win the support of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income tax and who, he suggested, are happy being dependent on government.

Two cases in point: William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, slammed Romney’s comments as “arrogant” and “stupid,” and said that Romney risked alienating his own base, while Ed Rollins, a GOP strategist and campaign veteran, downplayed the incident.

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“Romney made a minor mistake,” Rollins said on Fox News’s “America Live with Megyn Kelly.” “He didn’t misinterpret facts. He said something he probably shouldn’t have said last May at a fundraiser, a closed fundraiser. And now it’s a front-page story all over the country, with people not only writing the story, they’re basically saying this is the end of his campaign. How absurd is that when you are basically within 2-3 points, with the election seven weeks away?”

Kristol had a different take, writing, “It’s worth recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes are Romney supporters—especially of course seniors…as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they’re not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.”

David Brooks, the center-right New York Times columnist, sparked a debate on Twitter and among pundits with his column, headlined “Thurston Howell Romney,” in which he said that the Republican nominee’s comment — which he bashed as “a country-club fantasy” — also “reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.”

“Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater,” Brooks wrote. “But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?”

A video of Romney speaking at a private fundraiser, which was obtained by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, showed a clip of the candidate saying that 47 percent of Americans—who don’t pay income taxes—are “dependent upon government”and that Romney will “never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

“Ultimately Romney’s division of the electorate has an odd Marxist twang to it, as if those dependent on government are simply voting their naked economic self-interest,” Goldberg said in his post, adding later, “Which raises the other, bigger, problem with the blanket derogation of people who don’t pay income taxes. Undoubtedly moochers and layabouts are overrepresented in the ranks of the non-filers of income taxes. But so are the working poor…retirees, college students, et al.”

Some members of Congress—and congressional hopefuls—ran away from Romney’s remarks, including GOP Senate hopeful Linda McMahon, who’s running in deep-blue Connecticut, who distanced herself in a statement.

“I disagree with Gov. Romney’s insinuation that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care,” she said. “I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be. People today are struggling because the government has failed to keep America competitive, failed to support job creators, and failed to get our economy back on track.”